After Sri Lanka finished the third day of the summer’s final Test on 94 for one and needed 125 to win, England captain Paul Collingwood said that the match had been “one of those days when we didn’t get it right.” This was the team’s first victory against the home team in ten years and only their fourth in this nation.
England scored 156 in their second innings and were bowled out in just 34 overs, needing to win this match to achieve a clean sweep of their six summer Test matches. Only Jamie Smith’s brilliant 50-ball 67 kept England from disgrace. “This year’s Test cricket hasn’t been one of our better days,” England assistant coach Collingwood remarked.
“We constantly want to find a constructive method to put pressure on the opposition by taking bowlers off their lengths, but occasionally it doesn’t work out. In Test cricket, talented players can exert pressure on you through many means.
“We’re not going to do things perfect every time, and today was one of those days. Tomorrow is still our chance to go out and win the game.
“I believe that pitch has enough movement to allow us to quickly take nine wickets.” It goes without saying that we will require a lot of things to go our way, but we still need to believe that. It’s a great chance for us to try to win a Test match since you can get wickets in bunches there.
Smith drew comparisons to the legendary Australian wicketkeeper-batter Adam Gilchrist with his innings, which ended with an average of 48.70 and marked the third half-century of his first Test summer that has also included a century.
“Having those kind of skills and the power that he has is going to put a lot of teams under pressure,” Collingwood stated. It takes the life out of you as an opponent when someone has the potential to do something like that, but he’s undoubtedly an entertainer and he goes back to the days when Gilchrist used to come in at seven for Australia.
Even though Vishwa Fernando was experiencing some hamstring pain, he eventually accounted for Smith after dismissing Joe Root and Harry Brook.
As a bowler, you never know how far you can push yourself, according to Aaqib Javed, the bowling coach for Sri Lanka.He showed there with everything he had, and it worked out well for him. Though often individuals choose the safer route, he had the guts to try it.
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